The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE $18.7m construction of several wastewater treatment plants and pumping stations in New Providence will be completed by the end of the month, saving the Water & Sewerage Corporation maintenance costs, WSC chairman Adrian Gibson said yesterday.

Island Site Development was given the contract for the works in 2017 through a 2011 Inter-American Development Bank loan as part of a WSC support programme.

Mr Gibson told reporters: “WSC embarked on the development of a long term wastewater master plan to address wastewater collection, treatment, and disposal needs of New Providence as well as the rehabilitation of critical sewerage infrastructure on the island. The long term objective of the master plan is to divide the island into three drainage areas with three regional wastewater treatment plants. The regional plants will be Airport Industrial Park Plant to service the western drainage area, Gladstone Road Plant for the central area and the Fox Hill plant for the eastern area.”

Small works included rehabilitating ten sewerage pumping stations and concrete works, electro-mechanical works, installation of standby generators and landscaping works, according to Mr Gibson.

The major works include a new Malcolm Park Main Pump Station, the construction of a pretreatment facility in Fox Hill and the construction of an additional pump station at the Flamingo Garden wastewater treatment plant site “to drain the Flamingo Gardens sub-basin and to pump the wastewater after screening into a deep disposal well on site.”

Regarding the pretreatment facility in Fox Hill, Mr Gibson said: “This facility will act as part of the head works for the proposed tertiary treatment plant to be constructed during the long term phase of the plan. Ultimately, the FHWWTP will be constructed to treat approximately 5.4 million imperial gallons/day, as projected in the master plan for 2035 to meet stringent effluent quality for irrigational use. The plant is planned to be built in stages, and will eventually receive flows from subdivisions in the eastern area, Malcolm Park and the Pinewood Gardens drainage areas.”

As for a new pump station at the Lynden Pindling International Airport, a new force main will connect the LPIA station to the Airport Industrial Park wastewater treatment plant for full treatment, phasing out the existing LPIA treatment plant, the WSC chairman said.